Today's hard drive market is starting to grow towards enterprise level hardware, which is SAS. SAS, or Serial Attached SCSI, is the server grade storage medium of choice these days. Some desktop motherboards like the ASUS P6T Deluxe offer support for up to a pair of SAS drives, so read on as we show you how to setup a pair in RAID and install Windows Vista Ultimate 64-bit.

In our review of the ASUS P6T Deluxe we noted that the motherboard was one of very few desktop boards to feature an on-board SAS controller. With this controller from Marvell, the board can just as easily function as an incredibly powerful and reliable workstation, or a monster gaming rig with ultra fast hard drives. Since there are a few different speed grades when it comes to SAS hard drives we aren't going to focus much on the speed of the drives, but simply how to get Windows Vista installed on a pair of drives in RAID 0 (stripe set).

Apoptosis wrote:I'll let Brian answer that... What HD benchmark do you like these days?

PCMark Vantage, or ATTO, or CrystalDiskMark all seem to be pretty popular as well as Iometer for I/Os. They give a better idea of how the drives behave in more specific and real world scenarios. Maybe in my week off from school (coming up in a few weeks) I can throw my 15k.2's in there and run some similar benchies/comparisons to see if that buys you anything.

I tried to use this to get my P6T Deluxe to install Vista 64 on my GSkill Titan SSD using the SAS controller as a SATA port but it wouldn't work. Found this solution in the Mother Board forum and it allowed Vista to find the drive.

rustyNISSAN wrote:I have struggled with this issue for a day now and I finally got it to WORK! (Only one day, I know...) Just thought I'd post what worked for me and maybe clear some stuff up.The KEY to getting your SAS HDD to work as your boot drive (initial install) is...

USE THE DRIVER IN THE AMD64 FOLDER!!!("but I don't have an AMD...")

The beauty is that you don't have to find it or slipstream it or anything. I believe all the BIOS default settings are sufficient, just install your SAS HDD (I had no other HDDs attached). Pop in the Vista install DVD, and when it asks you where to install Vista, there will not be any HDDs listed. Fear not! Simply click on "Install Driver" or whatever it says. Then, you remove the Vista DVD, insert the DVD that came with your ASUS mobo, and it should find the drivers for the Marvell SAS controller. After that, it installs the driver. It will whine about how much it misses the Vista install DVD at some point, so just swap the ASUS DVD for the Vista one and it installs the rest of the way.

Thanks to all the people on here that have posted useful replies! Updating Vista, checking drivers, etc. Looks like this thing is going to be sweet!

This worked to allow me to install Vista 64 on my SSD using it as a SATA device connected to the SAS controller! Many thanks rustyNISSAN!

Deep in the human unconscious is a pervasive need for a logical universe that makes sense. But the real universe is always one step beyond logic.

PMFJI, but the instructions in the LegitReviews article simply say "the driver" is on the driver CD or else can be downloaded. Could you clarify exactly what driver (file name, description) one needs to download? The above article is one of the recommended ones to do this, but for someone who doesn't do this often, it's missing that key detail. In other words, exactly what is the install looking for on the USB during the install?

I somehow got it RAID running a couple months ago under W7-32, and now I'm ready to wipe and install Windows 7 64-bit. The ASUS CD I got is too old for W7, and, much as I dearly love 'em, ASUS has always been very cryptic about what the various files are for in their download area. I think I need the file titled Intel Chipset Inf Update Program V9.1.1.1014. However, my notes say I need to find a group of files that includes iastor.inf among others to put on the USB for during the install, and that isn't in the zip file.

Signed,Puzzled in Ohio --------------Next Day Update:(for those who follow and for me in late October when I do it again because I'll forget it by then)I don't think ASUS provides the file you need on USB during the install. It would appear* to be this one on Intel's site:http://downloadcenter.intel.comChipsets > Chipset Software > Intel® Matrix Storage Manager

Where I find both the 32 and 64-bit Floppy Configuration Utility"Creates floppy disk for 64-bit OS with Intel® Matrix Storage Manager 8.9.0.1023 files - used to preinstall RAID driver"

* Reason being, The Intel file lists ICH8R/ICH9R/ICH10R/DO/PCH SATA RAID Controller, and the P6 series all have the Intel® X58 / ICH10R Chipset. Just documenting specifics.

The post above mine seems to be installing his O/S on the Intel Raid, which is a completely seperate issue. FYI, you do not need a driver for Intel Raid on W7, but you will still need the above file to use the Marvell SAS controller during install.